Tag Archives: time

As a chronic worry wort, how much of your life have you spent worried? Is the grey space on this clock how much you spend each hour with anxious thoughts? It has been mine – or more.

If you spend hours each day, you’ve likely wasted years of your life frozen in fear. Don’t feel bad, you’re not alone. All of us who worry, are very good at burning through hour after torturous, non-productive, hour. But now, in this moment in time, is when we stop to reflect on that, and make it part of our past behavior. A habit we are committed to dumping.

Make this a new goal: To be aware of how much time you allow yourself to spend brooding and worried. You own your life. You control your mind. You deserve freedom from mental pain. It’s a simple goal, but far from easy. It takes practice, effort and repeated concentration on doing something unfamiliar – letting go, and moving the hell on with your real life. The life where you live in the present.

For a few minutes, instead of worrying about anything, think about something fun or productive. What else could you be doing if you weren’t drowning in worry? Whatever you are worried about can wait, because if it’s a real issue, it will be there when you are done with your current productive task. Put it on a shelf and grab another item. If it’s a projected/potential problem, it can wait because you are able to handle anything that comes your way – when/if that happens. And trust me, it won’t. It will be ok – which means this potential problem can wait forever.

Find something seriously engaging, and go to it. It will be hard at first, to focus, but mentally slap your thoughts back on track. Take each minute one at a time. You are a good person, you deserve to feel accomplished. What ever you are doing, do your best at it, and enjoy every moment. Indulge in this, and it will force you to feel better.

After you have completed your project, and realized that you can, to some extent, control your thoughts and feelings, and actually produce something great, you can puff up with pride and realize that you don’t need to worry. Yes, it’s a well beaten path, and this new one is narrow and hard to track, but the more you do it, the easier you will see it, follow it and spend more and more time there.